Take Back The Fight

Reviews / Votes

"Loreto reminds us, we must and our way to a feminism that stops lauding the appointment of women CEOs, vice- presidents, and police officers while corporations, governments, and police departments continue to systematically harm those who are trans, Black, disabled, and poor. We need a feminism that confronts the many crises facing Indigenous women - from unclean drinking water and crowded, unsanitary housing to systemic violence - as part of its core work. It must be a feminism that can begin anew, in a place that privileges the relational work that patriarchy has long taught us to devalue, along with those who perform it."
- Julie McGonegal, Literary Review of Canada, May 2021 "Take Back the Fight also highlights leadership in the digital age. Loreto warns any wannabe leader, "prepare to be doxed" (the act of publicly revealing previously private personal information). She also points out that in 2013, there was a near-plurality of women leaders of Canadian provinces, but by 2019, they were all gone. What happened?


"Politics happened," writes Loreto. She notes that when someone is on display, they become a target-and it's "getting worse" for Black, Indigenous, racialized, non-binary and trans women, all of whom bear the brunt of the abuse. She reports on the high level of hatred by men against women in politics such as former Alberta Premier Rachel Notley and Catherine McKenna, Trudeau's environment minister for the first four years of his government. McKenna was dubbed "Climate Barbie" in a widely condemned tweet from Conservative MP Gerry Ritz, and worse, because she was blonde and active in her portfolio."
- Judy Haiven, Canadian Dimension, May 2021 "Take Back the Fight does not claim to have all the answers; indeed, Loreto cautions against replicating an approach from one experience to another, especially if we are unfamiliar with what makes each struggle unique to its own historical circumstances. Instead, she suggests that the answers we need will be found in the practice of organizing ourselves into new networks, which should both draw on the lessons of the past and be open to new forms of activism.


Throughout her book, Loreto is conscious of the challenges of organizing in the digital age. She acknowledges the opportunities, as well as the pitfalls, that come with dramatic technological changes to how we organize, disseminate, and access information, and accordingly communicate with each other in both public and private spheres. However, unlike other texts that confuse a wider range of communication tactics with a long-term organizing strategy, Take Back the Fight relies on practices, both online and in real life, that seek greater coordination among activists, that cultivate democratic decision-making and accountability among them, and that build their confidence through the day-to-day work that turns struggles into movements."
- Pam Frache, James Clark, Spring Magazine, August 2021 "It's as if Loreto tosses a pebble into the water, causing ripples to form on the surface. Rather than writing about the pebble itself, she writes about the ripples. And that's a good thing. She looks at organizations that are complementary to the feminist movement, but which-when added together with it-become a much more powerful force ... With Loreto's solid research, journalism and activism, she manages to investigate what's happened to the feminist movement and demonstrate what it will take for it to become a major force in Canadian society. This work could not be more urgent." -- Judy Haiven, Canadian Dimension, May 2021 "Take Back the Fight is an excellent analysis of the rise and decline of second-wave feminism in Canada and in particular of the extraordinary National Action Committee on the Status of Women. Nora Loreto shows both the strengths and the weaknesses of Canada's largest feminist organization, giving readers an anti-racist feminist view of that history and persuasively argues that we need a cross-country organization to unite feminist activists today. Thank you to Nora for making this important part of activist history come alive for readers and now be documented for history." -- Judy Rebick, author of Ten Thousand Roses and former President of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women 1990-1993 "Charting a tumultuous history of mainstream feminism, Nora Loreto's Take Back the Fight is a clarion call for a large-scale, intersectional and radical feminist movement in Canada." -- Harsha Walia, author of Undoing Border Imperialism "Feminism Is a Verb" -- Review by Patricia Gelinas Boushel, Published in the Fall 2020 issue, Montreal Review of Books "Loreto reminds us, we must and our way to a feminism that stops lauding the appointment of women CEOs, vice- presidents, and police officers while corporations, governments, and police departments continue to systematically harm those who are trans, Black, disabled, and poor. We need a feminism that confronts the many crises facing Indigenous women - from unclean drinking water and crowded, unsanitary housing to systemic violence - as part of its core work. It must be a feminism that can begin anew, in a place that privileges the relational work that patriarchy has long taught us to devalue, along with those who perform it." -- Julie McGonegal, Literary Review of Canada, May 2021